


meant to heal

by barebones



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Dissociation, Mild Gore, dean gets injured on a hunt but what else is new, hospital mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 01:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barebones/pseuds/barebones
Summary: Long ago they debunked the theory of destiny, so Castiel concedes this moment, Dean’s kindness, as a conscious choice. And he weeps.





	meant to heal

**Author's Note:**

> this is intended as a very, very late birthday gift for my friend elena. ♥
> 
> this is set in a season 12 au of ours, which, if i tried explaining, would be very convoluted, but the gist is castiel is human, and he's adjusting. kind of. you know how this goes, folks.

Listlessly Castiel scratches at his itchy palms, an indication that the cuts there are healing slowly but surely. Like some ghostly presence, misty rain clings to his skin, to his hair and eyelashes, beckoning an unshakeable chill to travel up and down his spine. He aches to unfurl his stiff legs, to remove himself from the poor conditions here up on the bunker’s roof, but instead he stays.

It isn’t long before Castiel hears metal scraping against itself—the heavy trapdoor opening, thudding closed after one, two beats—and the wet squelch of boots on concrete making their approach. Castiel’s hearing isn’t too dull, as it turns out, to discern Dean’s palms chafing over the thighs of his jeans. Castiel never bothered to wipe off the rust that had flaked off the hatch and confettied onto his own hands like stars.

“Hey.” Castiel can hear the tentative smile, the kind that falls just short of nonchalance, formed around the greeting; Dean’s shadow, discernible even in the overcast, stretches long and tall in front of Castiel’s own, and he shuffles his weight from one foot to the other. The display is so classically Dean that it weighs on Castiel’s chest something heavy and endearing. “What’re you, uhh—what’re you doin’ up here?”

“Dean.” The name splinters in his throat, and because he knows it’s inevitable, he rises, noticing, once he's turned around to see, how Dean’s already got his hands in his jean pockets, thumbs exposed. Castiel stands rigid, arms at his side. “I was just… getting some fresh air.”

“Mm.” Dean doesn’t challenge that, simply nods, lips pursed, as if he already suspects the truth. And he probably does. Castiel once reconstituted Dean from the inside out—literally stitching sinew to sinew to make whole again—but in a way Dean can read the inner workings of Castiel just as well if not better. He doesn’t need to rattle Castiel around to hear the broken bits inside.

They fall into a lull which isn’t at all unpleasant before Dean says, “Rain’s pickin’ up,” and consults the ominous sky, just as Castiel upturns his hands to catch the steady drops. He studies the eddies of old blood and rust swirling on his skin, and Dean closes the gap between himself and Castiel, taking Castiel’s wrists into his loose grip. “C’mon. Sam’s got somethin’ on grave robberies somewhere up in Nebraska.”

He allows Dean to lead him through the fog into the warmth of the bunker below.

* * *

His hands tremble as they press into Dean’s gaping chest, blood pulsing hotly past them. This time Dean’s name bubbles in his throat like puke he can’t swallow, its sound spilling past his own split lips in a helpless litany, because Dean’s eyes are rolling up into his head as he grapples for consciousness and that shakes Castiel down to his graceless bones more than anything.

“’m alright… ‘m good,” Dean promises past the steady stream from his mouth. “This… it ain’t anything.” His smile is as liquid-red as cherry cough medicine, and he sputters on the exhale of a wet, ragged breath as Sam in the background beheads the last of the family of ghouls, the sickening thud as its head hits the floorboards reverberating through Castiel’s knees.

Together Sam and Castiel lift Dean—as gingerly as time permits, meaning not at all—from the crypt’s cold stone floor and carry him to the backseat of the Impala, and as Sam speeds off to the nearest hospital, Castiel resumes his busywork of applying shaky pressure to the hole sputtering above Dean’s unyielding heart. Turns out not even a collapsed lung can keep Dean from remarking to Castiel how he _literally_ takes his breath away.

The next morning, listening as the monitors proffer their contented beeps and whirs from the other room, Castiel washes away Dean’s blood caked in his love lines.

* * *

His breathing hitches every so often, and he moves with careful deliberation, but it isn’t enough to hazard that a fortnight ago Dean’s flesh was ripped into like the first gift on Christmas morning. He sits beside Castiel on a marble bench they found moldering beneath green foliage a while ago but never had much occasion to sit on until now. Recuperation rates aren’t like what they used to be with one less angel on call, so they’ve got time.

“You should still be in bed, Dean,” Castiel mildly reprimands.

Dean grins as warm as the afternoon sun. “Thanks, nurse, I’ll get right on that.” At least he doesn’t look nearly as pale anymore; color has risen in his unshaven cheeks, and he manages to chuckle a low rumble that spreads like honey in Castiel’s chest. “S’okay, Cas. I’ve been cooped up in my room for, what? A long-ass time, plus the hospital stay. ‘m good.”

There’s a quiet contentment to Dean as he stares ahead at the pocket of nature that is the bunker’s garden—this living, breathing time capsule not unlike what Castiel used to be. Castiel can't help but watch him.

“Hey, got somethin’ for you,” Dean says a few moments later, suddenly sliding a knee up onto the seat so that they're facing one another, and he reaches for something just out of sight on the far end of the bench from Castiel.

Nonplussed, Castiel blinks as Dean produces a small pot of… “Bluebells?”

“Uh, yeah. Some new mom in maternity was handin’ ‘em out.” Dean appraises the droopy bulbs, the crow’s feet around his eyes crinkling in his fondness. He half-shrugs, one of few careless gestures that inspires a wince; nonetheless, he is undeterred, persists in explaining the genesis of this small token. “Said her room was overflowing, so I’m guessin’ she must have about a dozen aunts to get that many.”

Castiel doesn’t say anything as the pot is transferred to his lap, their fingers sliding over one another before his own encircle the clay container, his thumbs hooking over its lip. His eyes sting.

“Cas?” Dean’s tone is cautious. Castiel hates the implication of the sound, the truth behind it.

Castiel hesitates. “Bluebells, they… typically represent humility—gratitude as well.”

Dean considers Castiel, a frown line between his brows. He is silent.

“Dean, I…” Castiel grips tighter onto the terracotta. It doesn’t crumble through his fingers; instead, he crumbles around _it_ , Dean a steady presence all the while, his mussed hair a telltale sign of no doubt having bypassed the bathroom earlier in favor of finding Castiel out here. The emergency room bracelet remains fastened around his wrist.

Long ago they debunked the theory of destiny, so Castiel concedes this moment, Dean’s kindness, as a conscious choice. And he weeps.

* * *

Together they plant the bluebells under the shade of a great, solitary tree with low-hanging branches, and Castiel seals the ceremony with a kiss, leaving a dirty handprint on Dean’s cheek. And somehow it’s enough.


End file.
